The Cedar Mesa Project

World Wide Web Resources for Traveling in the Cedar Mesa Area

"Though some river rats will disagree with me, I have been able to conclude
only that Powell's party in 1869 survived by the exercise of observation,
caution, intelligence, skill, planning - in a word, Science. A man or a
civilization could do the same."
Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Penquin Books,
New York, 1953. p. viii

The World Wide Web offers many resources to help you develop a detailed
background and understanding about traveling into the Grand Gulch and Cedar
Mesa areas. Here is a brief sampling.

The Bureau of Land Management along with the USDA Forest
Service have deployed a GeoCommunicator site that provides a wide range of
geographic information that focuses on the 12 western states. They also offer
an email notification of activities, local events, updated data sets and maps.

Weather Information On-Line

Here is a neat site for getting an idea of upcoming weather. This site
presents a satellite picture of North America taken in the last 15 - 20
minutes. (Use the Infrared View after dark.) Click on any area to get a
magnification centered on that spot. And even though the initial picture may
appear cloud covered, you can often see through to the ground (to get a lake
or river for a landmark) after a few magnifications.

Night Skies Information On-Line

What star is that? Here is a site that gives you a custom star map with the
names of the stars and constellations for anywhere on Earth. Enter your
latitude and longitude (Note that this site comes from Zürich,
Switzerland and you must enter local coordinates, such as 37 degrees, 38
minutes north, 109 degrees, 28 minutes west for the Blanding area), or select
a nearby city -

Also check with the Astronomy Magazine (above) which often
has coverage on current meteor showers.

Interested in seeing if you can spot a satellite? Give this site your
location (either specify your geographical coordinates, or by selecting a city
from their extensive database), this site calculates the location in the sky
and times to look for any of the brightest satellites. This site includes
predictions for the International Space Station and when applicable, the Space
Shuttle. Also take a look at their predictions for the Iridium satellites,
which tumble and are hard to see, but are spectacular.

The access in this site is a bit daunting, the best approach
is the following path -

Occasionally, during periods of intense solar activity, the aurora borealis
can be seen at low latitudes, such as the Cedar Mesa area. Here is a site that
gives you the aurora forecast for tonight. This display is centered on
Fairbanks, Alaska, but select "custom maps" to get a plot of the
auroral zone in other longitudes.

(This Aurora forecast is not made during the summer months in central
Alaska - from mid April through mid August, since it does not get dark enough
to see this phenomenon. See the NOAA Space Weather forecast below for a
satellite view of the aurora.)

And take a look at a fascinating collection of aurora photographs, some of
them taken in the Fairbanks area from directly under the curtains. Select,
under IMAGES, Shots from Alaska, and the Jan Curtis images.